Gasoline prices spike higher in the Bay Area in one day

Gasoline prices in the Bay Area and California spiked higher Tuesday in the wake of an outage in a intrastate pipeline operated by San Ramon-based Chevron and a hiccup at a Southern California refinery operated by Texas-based Exxon Mobil, an indication that pressure on fuel prices remains in place after the Richmond refinery fire.

Nearly two months after the disastrous blaze that knocked out the crude unit at Chevron's Richmond fuel factory, Bay Area gasoline prices are 10.3 percent higher than the average price the night of the refinery blaze, according to an analysis of information supplied by online site GasBuddy.com.

The average price of gasoline in the Bay Area now is $4.25 a gallon, or 39 cents higher than the average price of $3.86 a gallon in the nine-county region on Aug. 6.

Gasoline prices on Tuesday averaged $4.21 in the East Bay, $4.23 in the San Jose metro area and $4.31 in the San Francisco metro region. Over a one-day period, Tuesday's gasoline prices were up 3 cents in the East Bay, 2 cents in the South Bay and 4 cents in the San Francisco area.